Greg KH, Linux kernel developer delivered a keynote in the Linux plumbing conference about the health of the ecosystem. His message was essentially that distributions that don't contribute to the ecosystem have to rely on the whims of others which is unhealthy for them. Here is an introduction the development model and some interesting statistics about the Linux kernel code. Update by TH: Rebuttals are appearing all over the web, like this one by Canonical's Matt Zimmerman ("He's refuting a claim which has, quite simply, never been made. [...] When this sort of thing happens on mailing lists, it's called trolling."), or this one by another Canonical employee, Dustin Kirkland.

Why? Ubuntu has gotten more people to try Desktop Linux than any other distro before. It got me back into it, after years of ignoring because the distros of 1998 (the last time I tried Linux) weren't up to the task of being a desktop. In the interim, I tried and really liked FreeBSD (if you can imagine that), as well as used Windows.

Ubuntu got me to try Linux again, and from there I moved to Debian proper. I think this is the case for a lot of people, they try Ubuntu and see what the fuss is about with this Linux thing, and then eventually, they move to another, more suitable desktop for their needs.